Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Knitting ADD

I have been known, from time to time, to flit around from project to project, trying to see what feels right and what I want to work on. When I have a big project, like a blanket, I’m usually pretty devoted to that project, dreaming about other things, smaller, that I could be knitting. BUT, when I allow myself the time to work on “fun” small projects, it feels as though I have the attention span of a gnat, casting on a few stitches here, then ten seconds later, “OOOOH SHINY”, and I’m distracted to something else.

I have the most crippling case of Knitting ADD (KNAD) right now. I can’t allow myself to cast on anything new. I just can’t- because there are SO MANY things on needles right now that need to be finished. SO many. So instead, I’m so overwhelmed by my projects, I haven’t been knitting at all, just casting a trillion things on and then losing love with them 43.5 seconds later.

Then I fooled myself into thinking that I knew how to do an after thought toe and all hell, broke loose, resulting in this.

Now I can’t get the pooling to go as snazzy as it did the first time and so instead I just keep ignoring them. To frog or not to frog…. that is the question?

Exhibit B: the Doggy Mitts of EPIC GAUGE FAIL

I don’t think I have a needle I haven’t knit these with. Finding it too painful to rip out- I upped the needle to US 4 and knit them to this. (How sad that these recommend a US 1… and I keep going up needle sizes!)

Except I know that I’m still kidding myself and these are the tightest mittens knit in the history of faire isle. Any tighter and they’d be bullet proof. They have to be ripped. Again. And instead of facing this reality, I just leave them on the needles, waiting for them to magically correct themselves.

I can’t decide if thicker yarn is going to fix my issues or if I just need to admit defeat.

Exhibit C: Cashmere Therapy

Oh yes, it’s lovely- and this is one of the few projects that I haven’t made an error on. It’s just… well… I’m bored. And every time I knit this (and we’re on skein #2 now so it’s not like I’m not making any progress), I just want to knit something else. I’m also deathly afraid of blocking this, because I have a feeing it’s going to be tricky.

Instead of fighting that urge to cast some thing else on while knitting this shawl- I’m suddenly impulsive.

Exhibit D: Rainbow Socks

Because rainbow plain vanilla socks are more fun than a cashmere shawl apparently. Truthfully I wanted something very, VERY easy to knit while I went on a road trip with the super fun Jocelyn and Anne- so I pulled these out of stash, cast on and made immediate, satisfying progress.

Except my sister mentioned that she wants knee socks (not in reference to these socks, just in general) and now all I can focus on is my OVERWHELMING NEED to rip these out and turn them into knee socks.

Not to mention Exhibit E (Noro Scarf), Exhibit F (Argyle socks) and Exhibit G (Silk Scarf) that have been around so long, I’ve actually gotten used to ignoring them!

I’m also mildly entertaining about throwing an "Exhibit H" into the mix and casting on the next blanket this weekend for a friend due after Christmas.

Why is it when I have a big project I can “buckle down” and be monogamous? But, when it comes to little projects- I’m all over the place? I can't see to pay attention to anything longer than a minute! If you're wondering why blog posts have been light- it's because I'm sitting here in a pile of "Works in Progress" and wondering why I did this to myself!

I blame Ravelry. I wouldn't have this problem of "OOOH shiny! Look at that" if Ravelry didn't tempt me with lovely projects. So with this ranting, I'm off to knit some stuff. What? I don't know- but I have to knit SOMETHING.